Listen to Taylor Swift’s new dancey dubstep-ish single “I Knew You Were Trouble”

The songs from Taylor Swift‘s upcoming Red album have been wildly hit and miss so far. “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” was the long lost Avril Lavigne b-side that nobody ever wanted (it’s got a cute music video, though), while the beautiful “Begin Again” was the classic Taylor we all fell in love with, and the addictive title track “Red” struck the perfect balance between country Tay-Tay and pop Tay-Tay.

Her latest Red promo single “I Knew You Were Trouble” takes Swift’s new sterile bubblegum pop-rock sound and throws in a dash of dancey dubstep to give it that extra radio-friendly boost that she’s clearly after this era.

I’m not going to say that “I Knew You Were Trouble” is bad, because it’s not. It’s far from it, and it has all the makings of one of those songs that everybody complains about at first, but then succumbs to later. However, it also reeks of the same kind of chart-hungry desperation that radiated from Alicia Keys when she recorded a last minute duet with Beyonce, or when Katy Perry slashed all her singles to three cents (okay, 69 cents) on iTunes.

Taylor’s new style will certainly appeal to pop fans who can’t handle even the faintest whiff of country music, but a lot of her longtime fans will be turned off by the fact that Taylor is now starting to sound less like herself, and more and more like everybody else.

Check it out below.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2012 at 10:27 pm and is filed under New Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Queen

    you’re so obsessed with the queen of pop,female Michael jackson and younger mother Teresa “KATYSUS PERRYSA”

  • http://twitter.com/souzaYan Yan Souza

    The classic case off sell-out

  • theprophetblog

    I love Katy. I saw her movie at the cinema and gave it a really glowing review on here, so your backhanded jab doesn’t really work since I actually like her.

  • bonesnotsolovely

    I hope her Country fans don’t mind this… although I could Imagine them complaining like “this ain’t the Taylor we fell in love with or something…” Nonetheless shes getting a new fan base with all these pop-ish singles

  • http://davidsask.wordpress.com/ DavidSask

    The dubstep selling out is her nail in the coffin for me, that is one sound of music that can die forever. WTF is she thinking with this experimentation stage, her other mistake is not doing a Shania and having country LP and other whatever she is trying to be!!!

  • http://www.facebook.com/ethanjcbs Ethan Jacobs

    as much as i hate it. i totally fucking love it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/ethanjcbs Ethan Jacobs

    im also high as shit. so. who knows.

  • PEBBLES

    I don’t think it’s called selling out considering the fact that she’s already extremely popular and has a huge fanbase…..

  • Jason

    The dubstep here sounds so gimmicky, they shouldn’t have added it like this. Both of Us, As Long As You Love Me, and the defining LOVEKILLER did it so much better.

  • theprophetblog

    The Shania thing is a good point. Shania used to record two versions of her songs — dance mixes for international audiences, and country version for America. I wish Taylor did something like that. Or just stopped this shit all together. I thought she would go more indie like the Hunger Games song she did. That sound is better for her…

  • theprophetblog

    She’s obviously not satisfied though. She’s already basically the biggest pop star in the game sales wise (along with Adele) but she wants to have the sales on top of the Rihanna/GaGa pop appeal. She wants to be the biggest thing on the planet.

  • iAmAwesome

    This isn’t even bad, though. I just don’t care for TSwift as a whole.

  • http://www.facebook.com/pinny101 Princhall Pinny Williams

    Someone’s clearly, yet incorrectly, looking to take back the “relationship break-up music” wig from Adele (do you think Speak Now would’ve won Album of the Year at the Scammy’s if Adele weren’t around?). I called it the minute she described this album and WANGBT just confirmed everything. I’m still looking forward to the album because the songwriting is always great.

  • Matt

    Love Love Love.

  • theprophetblog

    Yeah she is a really good songwriter, that’s why I love her more country/acoustic stuff because it shows off her writing and storytelling more, whereas these newer songs still have good writing I guess, but they’re more repetitive and watered down

  • SerferTJ

    I honestly like it!! And I love “Never Ever” too…NO SHAME!!!
    Taylor’s like 22 or something and she’ll have the rest of her entire career to make mature country records. Now’s the time to play around in the pop pool, and she’s actually making it FUN, so I can’t hate! She can bash men to any beat for all I care (well…I’ll draw the line at RedOne).

  • http://twitter.com/TheHomosocial The Homosocial

    This is a great track.

    Its sad that people feel like artists should stop recording in a certain style when it becomes popular.

    I praise Taylor for experimenting and would agree with the above comments if the song was bad but its not.

  • Chakra

    Yes! It’d be smart too, because I remember throwing down to make my parents buy BOTH versions of Shania’s albums way back when.

    When will Kween Twain return!?

  • simonseziam

    hahahaha – God bless and save you Ethan Jacobs :P I’m hungover as fuck and it is grating on my last nerve…

  • simonseziam

    Any mention of Shania makes me want her to walk through that door and annihilate all dem bitches…her comeback was so tame last year, she needs to re-group and come harder. Love me some Taylor, but Shania is the truth

    p.s. Anyone seen that lame Carolynne on UK X Factor, that everyone was harping on about being “country”…even though she comes from the middle of Yorkshire…NO!

  • http://twitter.com/ENL21 EddieL // 에디

    I’m glad she’s doing something different, was getting bored of her stuff. Wasn’t going to pick up the album but I probably will now.

  • http://www.facebook.com/thebLainekelley BLaine Kelley

    that’s what i don’t get tho, if she’s already the only chick in the game who’s actually garnering platinum ALBUM sales (sans adele) why would she want to risk alienating those record buyers just to snag the title of jankie ass “singles queen”?

    does she faiL to see what a Lame trade off that would be?

  • http://twitter.com/lllauna fangirl.

    I’ll say it so you don’t have to – it IS bad. It’s the musical equivalent of your mum getting pissed and dancing Gangam Style at a wedding.

  • http://twitter.com/IsmanKamarul Kamarul Isman

    Taylor is completely sell-out. Where’s the girl who once sing “Teardrops on My Guitar” that I fall in love with. She’s tries so hard to be a pop star. snd she lose her country twang. That’s why WANEGBT flop in Country radio. This is shows that maybe country radio is not for her anymore. This situation is really sad…

  • Alberto

    I am quite sure this song is brilliant. It somehow manages to be pop and country at the same time, as opposed to being country-pop fusion. It’s much better than We Are Never Getting Back Together and only slightly less catchy. Hopefully it will be the next single. But since all her album songs seem to be topping the iTunes Chart, if only for a few days at a time, do we even really know what a single is anymore? Is it just something she films a music video for?

  • S

    I don’t think Taylor is all that “chart hungry” or desperate to do better on the Hot 100. She is growing and becoming BOTH a successful singles and albums artist. How much did Speak Now sell again in its first week? A million? And without the help of 99c albums?

    All that she’s doing now is to try and experiment with new sounds and I applaud her for that. We’ve been hearing the same sound for three albums now and it’s about time that she does something that’s out of her comfort zone.
    It’s unfair for Taylor to be fucking honest. If she delivers the same country-pop sound we’ve all become accustomed to, people would call her stale and criticise her for not even trying to evolve. Now that she’s finally doing something different, y’all hoes are complaining saying she’s sounding like everybody else; too mainstream. I mean, seriously, when she said that she’s switching up her sound a little for this album, what did you think it was gonna sound like? Metal?

  • jilas

    must be threatened a bit by Carly Rae

  • http://twitter.com/AdamN0Eve Adam Rysio

    Im not really quite sure how I feel about Taylor wanting to sound like Katy Perry’s next of kin

  • TLo

    Well, if you are doing all these sellout stuffs, at least do it good. This one and her first single are lame and generic at their worst, although they are catchy. Now the question is, will she be able to sell a mili again and sell more in the long run with this I-got-them-genres-covered album?

  • Britney Lover

    It’s catchy for sure! I prefer this over “Red”

  • D$

    Tay Tay will always be one of those artists that is damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t. If she experiments she gets called a sell out, if she stays to her classic sound she gets called unoriginal. Accept this!

  • LizzyG

    To anyone who dislikes this song, did you actually listen to the production on this? It’s got layers and it builds and it’s fun, it’s rock, it’s pop, it’s dancy and it’s sexy on those high notes and the chorus just drags me in and I think the dubstep works perfectly there (who cares if it’s a trend or even a done trend, if it works and sounds good who gives a damn.)

    Just because your favorite artist isn’t doing exactly what they normally do, it doesn’t mean you have to abandon them. And even if you do, people like me (a none Taylor Swift fan) will pick her up where you drop her off.

    PS Plenty of country singers have put out poppy songs, and I think they’re better off for it. And I think it might be the next it sounds so they’re going to add pop to it, just like when hip hop got big in the late 90s/early 2000s, there were soo many gangster rap songs with a poppy chorus. And the same thing happened with dance in the late 2000s and still now. So the strictly country Swift fans, get used to a new sound, this is how the things evolve.

  • TheFlipper

    I actually like it but maybe because it sounds more mainstream. Never really got into the country stuff. So worked for me.

  • TheFlipper

    Also: you can still experiment with your sound without chasing trends and sell out. So it isn’t “she damned if she does she damned if she doesn’t” like some here say. You can have progress in your work without doing what anyone does.

    And it could be a Katy Perry song.

  • bobs

    I love Never Ever Get Back Together and this song quite a lot! She’s trying things that are new to her, and so kudos. I don’t think they should be dismissed in any way.

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  • http://www.twitter.com/themusicprophet The Music Prophet

    A sellout?
    If this Is what a sellout looks like today then ill take it. Last time I checked, a sellout pop star looked a little more like the Katy Perry’s and Rihanna’s of the business, adding guest features and constant shiny gimmicks to disguise the fact that there really the most generic beings in the business. Now, I can see where Taylor releasing pop songs like this could be misconstrued as a sellout move… But Is it? I don’t see Taylor dancing on a pole, dying her hair 15 different colors, or adding on rap features out the ass… I see the same shiny, Down to earth girl next door that’s always been there.

    Is she supposed to just re-release the same generic country album every time? 16 tracks of pure country that all sound just like they did 3 albums ago? God, please no!

    Taylor hasn’t changed one bit folks. She’s growing up yes, and she’s changed up her sound slightly … But she hasn’t morphed into a full blown pop-tart just yet…. You can all rest easier.

    I’ve had the privilege of listening to ‘Red’ in its entirety … And I can tell you right now it’s not all pop at all. There’s 6 or 7 tracks including ‘Back Together’ and ‘Trouble’ that are most definitely radio ready… But the majority of it is Taylor like normal. Those of you that hate her for her cutesy persona, or perceived innocence will continue to do so… Those who love her for all of it will continue to be on cloud Taylor. Don’t fret.

    Now, as for this song in particular, I actually think it’s great. It’s still got that Taylor sass, but it’s nothing too far from her norm. Those of you who really think this is dubstep though… Lmao. This is the most generic, stripped down “dub-step” since “Hold It Against Me”.

  • thugplaya56

    Agreed @themusicprophet:disqus could not have stated it better! Carry on T.Swift and haters can have several seats as you continue to slay the industry and single handedly keep it afloat! 10/22 can’t come soon enough… and as for your contemporaries, I hope they are all holding on to their brightly colored red, blue, black, tacky blonde, dyed and distressed wigs and weaves when you snatch them with epic debut week album sales!

  • http://www.twitter.com/themusicprophet The Music Prophet

    Ya ill admit…. I’m definitely excited to see if she’ll pull another million opener

  • thugplaya56

    she will…Tay Tay is a smart and savvy business woman in addition to her excellent musicianship and songwriting..she knows the business of music and understands promotion; and for everyone who accuses her of “selling out” continue to remain underground and without a top 10 hit.

  • ScoHay

    She’s got some nice songs on this album.

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  • Martin

    hey proph,

    just noticed that your review for this has been quoted on Wikipedia. smells like you can upgrade from D to C-list blogger. Congratz!!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Knew_You_Were_Trouble

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  • James

    I agree completely. Great review.